Community group My Cowdenbeath have said Fife Council’s draft Area Transport Plan 2025-35 “lacks ambition and doesn’t address the needs of local people”.

The local authority has been consulting on a draft plan which would set the actions on active travel, public transport, and parking in Cowdenbeath over the next 10 years.

Proposals and suggestions from the Council and its partners include adding traffic signals on the A92 junction into the town, the removal of bus lay-by’s on the High Street and the installation of more EV charging points around the town.

But the resident-led group say the plan does not address issues like congestion in the town centre, illegal parking during stock car meets and lacks transparency in how the proposals have been selected.

One of the group directors, John Scott, said “Although we support several of the actions, the plan overall seems to lack ambition and doesn’t really address many of the challenges local people face today, and which will likely get worse in the next decade. We want to see a better reflection of local ideas and greater transparency on how these actions have been selected. Some of the proposals will make congestion worse in our town centre in our view, which we cannot support. It feels like the bare minimum from a local authority which has its attention elsewhere. We should be aiming higher for places like Cowdenbeath, Lochgelly and Benarty.”

The group have published their full response to the plan, which you can read here.

Council officials have already had to apologise after mistakenly missing out all 5 of the area’s Roman Catholic schools from the draft plans so pupils can get to school safely over the next decade.

Fife Council and its partners first opened consultation on the transport options back in February, taking until September to produce the draft plan, which is out for public consultation until September 28th. You can read the Draft plan here or have your say on the proposals before the closing date here.